Virtual Russian classes

Basic Russian sounds and their transcription

Russian and English have similar sounds and even without special training you will be able to pronounce Russian words understandably for native speakers. At the same time, you should remember that Russian pronunciation has its own peculiarities and we are sure it will be very useful for you to learn more about Russian sounds on our site, as well as to listen to the speech of native speakers, and study our phonetics course.

To get started, we advise you to learn the basic sounds of the Russian language. Our aim is not to give a detailed linguistic description of Russian phonetic system. Here we provide the material which we think is sufficient to acquire essential skills in Russian pronunciation.

So, the Russian language has 42 basic sounds: 6 vowels and 36 consonants. The table below represents the signs (transcription) which are used on our site to designate Russian sounds. You can also listen to all of the represented sounds.

These podcasts are for those who already know basic grammar and want to improve their Russian. If you don't speak Russian at all, but can understand a few words, you still can listen to this podcast, it will help you too. The audios are entirely in Russian!

Bookstore instructions : All books are supplied in scanned pdf or djvu format, together with audio and video files after you get the password and link for download.

After you've chosen the item click on "в Корзину" (books will be added to your Cart). To see the books and their quantinty and total price click on "Корзина" to come back to bookstore click on "Вернуться в магазин" , to count total quantity and price click on "Пересчитать".

To confirm your order click on "Оформить заказ" (You'll be redirected to online form where you can fill in your "Ваше имя"- Your name, "телефон"- tel number (optionally ), e-mail, then click on "Заказать" - "Confirm order". Your order will be sent to our manager who will contact you to give you further instructiuons.